Baby Gazzee
by Dibsthe1
Summary: Gaz reveals her emotional age. Now she has a babysitter... TAK! Guest hosts: the Mythbusters! Special request by ManosHands. NOTE: If you think I've been writing too much Gaz lately, you're going to want to skip this one.
1. Friday

_(A/N) "Hi there! Last week, our lab kinda blew up in an explosion, so while the replacement is being built, Dibsthe1 is kindly allowing us to borrow Karma Labs this week to test this myth. We don't own 'Invader Zim,' do we?"_

_"'Invader Zim'? No, we've got nothing to do with 'Invader Zim. We're the Mythbusters." '_

_"So, what's the myth?" _

_"'You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.'" _

_"Ah, that one! So, how are we going to do this?" _

_"On this table, we have a dish of vinegar, and on that table, a dish of the same size contains the same amount of honey."_

"_And I'm going to put a piece of flypaper, of the exact same size, under... both... dishes!"_

_"That's it? Seems kinda low tech, doesn't it?'"_

_"Okay, okay... so we'll use this motion detector, this stopwatch, this CCTV setup, this videotape camera... and we've even got this... " Click... SLAM! " ... automatic door slammer in case we attract some deadly tsetse flies!" _

_"THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!" _

_"And we'll set up Buster over here, with a fly swatter to nail any flies the fly paper misses!" _

_"I'll open the window - Don't try this at home - and you can start the clock." _

_"Three, two, one... FIRE IN THE HOLE!!" _

Prologue - Friday

Still hungry, Dib reached for a piece of pizza. However, at Gaz's warning snarl he reached for the other remaining slice, the one with half the cheese missing. Gaz ate the better slice, burped, and turned her game back on.

While Dib drank water, the remainder of the last soda in the house was going flat in front of Gaz.

Dib turned on the TV and waited a minute. When Gaz seemed to have forgotten the rest of her soda, he ventured, "Are you going to drink the rest of that?"

"Shut up idiot! I can't play my game!" Gaz snapped, even though the earsplitting explosions from her game could doubtless be heard all the way upstairs through closed doors.

Dib concentrated on listening to his program. However, right when the guest was about to tell the host what that mysterious shadow had been found to actually be, Gaz blew something up at the crucial moment so he missed it. He had a good idea what would happen if he complained, however, so he said nothing, only sighed.

Many sudden, brutal beatings had led to this state of affairs. Dib knew he wasn't allowed to hit her back, not even in self-defense, so he never did; anyone who raised a hand to Gaz just turned her even more savage anyway.

Not that obeying this rule ever saved him from being ridiculed FOR obeying it.

"What's your problem, idiot."

It was easy to imagine the result if Dib told her what, or rather who, his problem was, so he said nothing.

Gaz put her game on pause and slowly turned to face Dib. "I asked you a question, and I want an answer. What is your problem."

"If I tell you, you'll get mad."

"Oh, I'm already mad, thanks to you. What is your problem." This was delivered in a monotone so low as to be almost a whisper, but no one could miss the deadly outrage simmering just beneath the surface.

"I didn't do anything to you, Gaz, but your game was so loud I couldn't hear my - "

"I... will PLAY... my game... as loud as I... WANT! To play my... game! Got... THAT?" Gaz gritted out, punching Dib in the stomach at each pause for emphasis. Finally she left her fist hanging in the air, neither hitting nor relaxing, enjoying the sight of Dib bracing for the blow that he didn't know would never come. Finally she got tired of holding her arm up and turned back to her game.

For Dib, all the fun had gone out of watching TV. As soon as he could breathe again, he turned off the TV and went upstairs to his room.

Possessed by a pathological need to control everything, Gaz always got what she wanted; that was just the way it was. However, neither of them had any idea just HOW different things would soon become.

_(A/N) "I see one! I see one already! I see a fly!"_

_"But it hasn't landed anywhere yet." _

_"But it has to land on something! Keep your eye on it! Watch closely... and it... is going! To land on... !!"_

_"The wall." _

_"That's not a fly, it's a mosquito! They don't drink honey, they drink blood! There! That'll fix it!" _

_"Nicely done. I like my blood where it is." _


	2. Saturday

Day Two: Saturday

Breathless with excitement, Dib ran in the front door. He was carrying a book of spells that he borrowed from the Swollen Eyeball library. He had had to follow an increasingly difficult treasure map just to find the drop off point, where he gave the password to a dark-cloaked figure with red visors. "Oh, it's you, Mothman. Please return the book in two weeks, or you will have to be suspended from membership for a period to be determined... and pay an overdue fine, which will also be determined."

"This is lots more interesting than just going to the library! I mean, the library's good and everything," Dib was saying to himself as he went into the kitchen, "but finding something in it is too easy. I just hope this book has the spell I want! If people thought I really was an adult, instead of a kid with an adult's vocabulary, they'd take me a lot more seriously! I keep telling people the danger we're all in and they just tell me to go and play spaceman like a good boy... "

It had been a hot day for such a long walk, and Dib decided drinking a pop as he looked up the relevant spell would be a good idea. Just as he placed his book on the table however, the telephone rang.

While Dib was telling the caller how to get in touch with Professor Membrane, Gaz came into the kitchen, distracted from her game by the ringing of the telephone. She now went to the fridge to get a pop.

It was the second last pop, so in Gaz's mind that made the last one hers as well. _Dib had better not touch it or HE WILL PAY!_

She decided to stay in the kitchen to drink it; who could play a video game anyway as long as Dib was blabbing away on the telephone? Sitting at the table, Gaz couldn't help but notice the spell book.

_I wonder what nonsense that idiot is into this time._ Gaz decided to find out just how MUCH nonsense; she could sure use the laugh.

"Yes, right now! Oh, he'll be at the lab all right, trust me! When isn't he at the lab? One night a year, which is when he... "

Suppressing a groan, Gaz looked over the Table of Contents. As she thought, they were all stupidly impossible, but the most stupidly impossible one of all was a spell that claimed it could both make you look, move and talk according to your actual emotional age.

"'Emotional age.' Only someone as STUPID as Dib would believe something this STUPID," she sneered. She sarcastically read it aloud, and just as she knew it would be, it was only a jumble of nonsense syllables that made absolutely no sense at all.

She rolled her eyes and sneered, "Like THAT'D work," but what actually poured out of her mouth was an inarticulate jumble of vowels.

--

"GAZ! You found my book for me! I couldn't remember where I left it and I was looking everywhere! Aw, thanks Gaz! I owe you one!" Dib patted Gaz's head gratefully. "You can be my sidekick from now on! Isn't that great?"

Gaz could imagine few things more distasteful, but this time, she found she couldn't punch him! Her arms wouldn't work! Why not? Gaz had to know! She screamed at Dib to tell her or else, but before he could answer, the front door opened. Dib dodged Gaz's clumsy swat as he turned around to see someone neither of them had expected to see until the next Family Night.

"Dad! I just told someone you were at the lab!"

"Until Gaz is in school, I'm only working half days... on Saturdays," said the Professor. "Remember?"

Membrane came into the kitchen, and began glancing around as if looking for something big that wasn't there. Finally he snapped his fingers and climbed the stairs to the attic. When he came down again, he was carrying a high chair on one shoulder and holding a box of clinking baby bottles under the other arm. "I don't know what I was thinking, putting these away so soon," he chuckled. "We obviously still have need of them!"

_You don't and I don't, so it must be Dib. I knew it all along, _Gaz tried to say, but something was wrong with her tongue as well as her arms.

The high chair was thickly coated with quite a few years' worth of dust, but Membrane was concerned with only one thing. "That will never fit in the autoclave in the downstairs lab," he said, detaching the tray, "but this sure will!" He carried the tray and the bottles downstairs and soon brought them back all shiny and steaming.

He placed the bottles on the table, and dust rose from the rest of the chair as Membrane fitted the sterilized tray back into place. "Good as new!" he proudly announced, raising a forefinger in a dramatic gesture.

--

Dib couldn't put his finger on it, but something was definitely off about Gaz today. She screamed when she didn't get what she wanted immediately and never gave him anything in return or even thanked him, but though he racked his brains Dib couldn't remember her being any other way. He seemed to vaguely recall a girl a lot closer to his own age doing just a little bit more than lying around, actually threatening him in fact, but he wasn't sure how he could have ever gotten this idea.

(This, of course, was the spell at work. It affected people around the subjects as well as the subjects themselves, so both Dib and Membrane now saw Gaz as a baby who could only lie around, scream, and whine.)

Dib scratched his head, trying to remember. Maybe he'd seen it in a movie? It would have to have been a horror movie, because that other kid hadn't been fit to live with. If she wasn't mad, she was getting mad. Viciously violent over every little thing and monstrously ungrateful, she had acted more like a psycho than a sister. Odd that he couldn't remember the name of the movie though; usually he had a good memory for things like that.

No, suddenly he remembered pain as well as fear, so it had been more than a movie... but the soft, tiny creature now wiggling in front of him couldn't have done it. Then where had he gotten such an idea?

He must have dreamed it. That was the only thing that would explain everything. He hoped he wouldn't have any more such nightmares, but if he did, he would have to see a doctor or a counsellor, maybe even a psychiatrist; the abuses he had dreamed could only be the products of a truly disordered mind.

By now, Gaz had begun to fuss loudly. She sure wanted something, but unable to figure out what, Dib took her in his arms and began to rock her, crooning a lullaby. Not sure which she hated more, Dib hugging her or singing to her, Gaz howled even louder, which kept Dib singing...

She was trying to say, "Order me a pizza right now, and with all my usual toppings, you stupid useless idiot, or I'll doom you to the fiery depths of a nightmare world without awakening," or some such rambling. It came out sounding more like, "Eee - sa! EEEE- SA!"

"What's wrong Gazzee?" Dib listened closely. "'Eee... '? Pee? Is that it? Go peepee? Want diaper change?" Dib rubbed her bottom and found it dry. No, it wasn't that.

Gaz screamed louder. "EEEE! EEEE - sa! 'I 'aar 'rrr... "

He leaned down to peer up into her face. "What's wrong, Gazzie?" he asked, the very picture of brotherly solicitude. "Aw, tell Dib what's wrong."

Never in her life had Gaz had a stronger urge to punch him right between the eyes than she did right now. He was her brother, much as she hated to admit it, so therefore that meant he knew what she wanted, he just wasn't giving it to her! He was a bad brother! She wanted her pizza and she wanted it NOW! But all she could make herself do was jiggle her arms and legs in all directions as she screamed harder than ever.

Membrane couldn't help hearing the noise. "Son, has Gaz been changed?" he called upstairs from the basement.

"No, Dad, she hasn't."

"Does she need a change now?"

"No, she doesn't."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Dad, I'm positive!"

"Well, sooner or later she'll need one. Do we have any diapers?" Membrane asked.

Pause, long pause.

"No, we don't."

"When did we run out?"

Dib thought hard. "I can't remember."

"Oh, well. We'll pick up some more when we go out for the groceries this afternoon."

After rocking Gaz a little longer, Dib glanced at the clock. It was almost lunchtime. He lifted Gaz into the high chair, told her that lunch would soon be ready, and called to order a pizza for dinner. Next he looked for the baby formula but couldn't find any. "Oh, man, we're out of that TOO! I'll have to remind Dad to get more."

Now Dib put a pan of milk on the stove to warm it, and took advantage of this lull to go to the fridge for a pop. He returned to Gaz with the pop in one hand and the baby bottle in the other. Before Gaz's suspicious stare, Dib opened the pop and gave her... the baby bottle.

Gaz would have beaten Dib into the floor but she couldn't reach him, so she hit and kicked whatever she _could_ reach, screaming and howling at the top of her lungs.

"Dad! Dad!" Dib called out. "Gaz got epilepsy! She's having some kind of seizure! Come quick! HURRY!"

Membrane came racing up the stairs to the kitchen, but when he saw what Gaz was doing, he immediately calmed down. "That is called a 'temper tantrum,' son," he said, patting Dib on the shoulder. "A colleague of mine who specializes in preschool child development told me all about them!"

"Why's she doing it?"

"She's mad about something, but she can't talk yet so she can't tell us why she's mad."

"Will she still do this after she learns how to talk?"

"No, son! After she learns how to talk, she won't have to thrash around like this any more. She'll tell us why she's mad and ask for what she wants!"

"How do we stop her? She'll bite her tongue off or - !"

Membrane chuckled. "No, she won't. She'll calm down soon enough, just you watch."

"Why's she so mad?"

"I don't know, son. I wasn't here. What happened right before it started?"

"I just gave her her bottle! You'd think that'd make her happy!"

Some time later, in fact quite a bit later, Gaz's tantrum eased somewhat, but only because she was figuring out how she could reach Dib to do something horrible to him. "See, son?" Membrane said, his goggles twinkling. "I told you she'd calm down!"

Dib sighed with relief. Only then did he take a gulp of pop... and Gaz went off again with her shrieking, flailing, and kicking. It was fortunate she had that spell on her and wasn't standing next to Dib; otherwise he would have been beaten very badly.

"OH AH! OHHHH!! AHHHHH!!" she raged, thrashing so madly that the high chair wobbled.

"What's she saying, Dad?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure if it's 'Grow, wall,' 'Oat call,' or 'Goat ball.' Tomorrow I'll ask my child development colleague about his latest research into infant communication." Suddenly Membrane brightened. "'GO MAUL'! That's what she's saying! I'll start a list of the things we need."

"We need diapers and formula," Dib reminded him. To Gaz he said brightly, "You're smart, real smart! Yes! We're going to the maul right after lunch!"

The doorbell rang. "Pizza's here!"

Dib answered the door like he always did. When she saw the pizza, Gaz managed to calm down and decided not to doom Dib after all... until after she had her pizza. As Dib lifted the cover, her mouth watered. However, right before Gaz's horrified eyes, Dib ate the first piece of pizza, without waiting for her to take first pick as she had trained him! She began her usual string of hair-raising, sulphurous threats, which came out as a whiny, pouty scream.

"What's wrong?" Dib asked, his mouth full of pizza. "No, sorry, Gazzee. I can't give you this. That'd be mean. You don't have any teeth. You'd choke on it! Drink your milk, and you can have some baby food when Dad finishes making it. I'll even ask if I can feed you. How's that?" He then... reached for another slice of pizza!

"You can start by feeding me that PIZZA, you stupid useless idiot," Gaz raged, which simply sounded like a shriek.

Dib kept assuring Gaz he was going to feed her, but when was he going to hand over the pizza? The more pizza Dib ate, the louder Gaz screamed and the redder her face got. By the time he finished, her face resembled an overripe tomato and the house sounded like a fighter jet was zooming directly overhead.

Professor Membrane finally noticed and reached for the blender. "She must be hungry, son. I will prepare a optimally nutrition-balanced baby food! " He began dropping spinach, parsley, green peppers, and cod liver oil into the blender.

"Can I feed her this time? Can I?"

"Hm, well, okay!"

"Yayy!"

As the blender roared, Dib looked through all the drawers and cabinets. Not finding any bibs, he tied a dishcloth behind Gaz's neck. She immediately tried to pull it off, but by the time she lifted her arms behind her head, she had forgotten how to work them in this position.

When Professor Membrane brought a bowl of revolting dark green substance and a tiny dessert spoon to Dib, Gaz settled down with glee to watch Dib eat it! It would be at least some compensation for his eating all her pizza.

"Open up, Gazzee," Dib sang in a singsong voice that set Gaz's every nerve on edge. She wound up to punch him... and almost fell out of the high chair backwards.

When she could finally sit up straight again, she saw Dib holding up a spoonful of slime, which was very slowly dripping off the side of the spoon. "Here comes the flying sau - cer! Whoo-oo-oo... "

Gaz could only stare at him in horror. Surely he wasn't expecting her to... to EAT THAT? And why did he keep talking to her like she was a... a BABY? She would punish him for mocking her! She would teach him to take her seriously! She was GAZ!

She began a long threat of tortures beyond his nightmares because babies believe they are all-powerful. However, the moment she opened her mouth, Dib dropped the thick paste on her tongue. "Yummy, yummy!"

Gaz went to spit the repulsive concoction right in his face... but it only dripped down her chin to fall onto the cloth and slide across it. Already Dib was taking another spoonful to her mouth, cooing about flying saucers again.

What was happening?

--

After lunch they took Gaz... baby bottle and all... into the car and drove to the maul. After collecting all the groceries, they went through store after store, buying enough baby supplies to outfit a day care center. Dib ran ahead in search of more stuff he figured Gaz would like, and Membrane bought everything he suggested.

When they walked past the computer store with its storefront display of all the newest games Gaz started to shriek and kick as if she was being electrocuted.

"She's getting tired, Dad! It must be time for her nap."

"I do believe you are right, son. Babies need more sleep than adults or older children! We shall immediately go home and put her to bed."

With Gaz wailing even louder, kicking and thrashing as they left the computer store behind, they left the maul and got in the car to head home.

_How dare you bring me home like this instead of buying me all those new games! _Gaz thought she was saying._ I will doom you like you have never been doomed before for telling Dad to buy BABY stuff for me! I will... _But all anyone heard was a loudly fretting baby.

"We'll have to hurry; we really tired her out!" said Dib. "Sorry, Gazzee, it's okay, we're going home now, yes, home!"

It had been years since Gaz had been put down for an afternoon nap, and her indignation did even more to keep her awake. She couldn't remember a more boring afternoon.

--

After he woke her up, or thought he woke her up, Professor Membrane announced, "Gaz needs something to improve hand-eye coordination, a crucial development at this age." Recognizing the phrase "hand-eye coordination," as one that was often associated with video games, Gaz perked up, delighted. She could have known her father would come to her rescue, and by this time she was jumping out of her skin from not being able to play her games.

Membrane headed off to the garage. When he came back and handed the item to her, however, she screamed in outrage until her face turned beet red. Instead of her Game Slave, she got THIS? It wasn't even a toy; it was nothing but a plastic stick with big gaudy plastic rings on it!

What kind of idiot did they take her for? This was an unforgivable insult! Even though it was her father handing her the offending object, Gaz's usual reaction was to blame Dib. She screamed and swung a clumsy kick at her brother, who avoided it easily enough.

Membrane frowned, examining the toy. "Hmm. It seems I have overestimated my daughter's mental age. This seems to be more appropriate for a later developmental stage. Ah, well. If this is over her head I'll have to invent something simpler! I must remember not to frustrate her like that!" Membrane left once more for the garage, and when he returned, he was carrying the now sawed off peg in one hand and one single ring in the other... with a string joining both pieces together.

--

"Son, mind your sister while I go downstairs to the lab for a few minutes. And make sure she doesn't fall down the stairs, poke forks in the electrical outlets, or swallow any commonly ingested household cleansers!"

"But Dad - !" How was Dib ever going to save the world from the alien menace if he had to do THIS all the time?

"Good boy!" said Membrane. Only the end of his hair was visible; he was halfway down the stairs already.

"Yes, sir," Dib sighed. Foiling Zim's evil plans would have to wait until after Gaz's bedtime. He placed the new booster seat on the couch, eased Gaz into it, and turned on the TV.

"You'll love this, Gaz," he gushed. "It's my favorite show; it's great, it's... !"

Gaz frowned. If it was Dib's favorite anything, it couldn't be good.

Dib clicked the remote, and the all too familiar opening theme started up. "'Mysterious Mysteries'! Doesn't that sound great?"

Gaz screamed.

"Don't worry, don't worry," cooed Dib. "Your big brother's here! I won't let anything get you!"

Gaz wanted to jump off the couch and go somewhere quiet, but her legs wouldn't move. She didn't know what was worse, the show or Dib's running commentary. When she got unbearably fed up listening to him talk about this week's topic, the Jersey Devil, she started to say, "Dib if you do not shut your stupid mouth right this second I will... " but it came out sounding like an uneasy gurgle.

"Huh? What's that, Gazzee? Are you scared? The mean old Jersey Devil is on TV, it's not going to get you! See?" Dib tapped the screen.

"As if I didn't know that. I will slowly kill you for mocking me. I will place your skull on the road at rush hour and then I will... " but it came out as a steady stream of whiny whimpering because that is what an unhappy baby sounds like.

"What's that? Still fussing! Here," said Dib, taking the horrified Gaz in his arms, turning her around so that she faced the wall instead of the TV. "Monster gon'! Monster aaall gon'!"

However, when the ad for Bloaty's Pizza Hog came on, she couldn't see that either, and on top of that, it reminded her of the pizza Dib had eaten without giving her any. She screamed in rage and frustration.

"Aw, that won't hurt you!" Dib said soothingly. "That's just a man in a pig costume. That's a mascot for Bloaty's Pizza Hog! We'll all go there... someday.

"Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I chased a man in a chicken costume because everybody thought he was Chickenfoot? But he really wasn't. That's a long story, and the show is coming on again... so I'll tell you all about it after the show!"

At the very thought of that, Gaz screamed louder and Dib held her again; this time he ROCKED her!

Gaz wanted to puke and it wasn't just because of the motion. She now felt too sick to scream, but at least that made Dib stop that stupid rocking.

The show finally ended, but then it seemed like Dib's story would never end, her father would never come upstairs, and bedtime would never come.

--

"Eee... ah, eee... ah," Gaz was still wailing when they were getting her ready for bed. It certainly wasn't the bedtime Gaz was used to. Normally she still had hours of video gaming to look forward to; in fact the sky was still light. "Eee... AHHH!"

"It almost sounds like she's saying 'pizza,'" Dib said.

"Impossible, son!" Membrane scoffed. "That was hours ago. Babies can't even remember hours ago."

But from the looks of it, Dib was sure that this one sure could.

_Pizza?_ Gaz could sure_ whine_ after stuff! He'd be happy when she grew up; when she was no longer a baby she'd get over such silly little things as a pizza a LOT faster.

--

_(A/N) "Ants! Look at them all!"_

_"Where are they coming from?"_

_"Better yet, where are they going?"_

_"The honey table! They'll get stuck all over the flypaper and mess up the results! Where's the broom... Shoo! Shoo!!"_


	3. Sunday

Sunday

It was Sunday morning, which meant freedom from skool for one more day. Gaz was happy about this until she remembered she now couldn't speak or do anything for herself. To make matters worse, this meant she had no way to get away from Dib! If she had to listen to him for more than a few minutes she would be certain to go incurably insane.

Dib had placed her on the floor in front of him, and now lay on his stomach reading from that execrable spell book about the spell he wanted the book for. The introduction to each spell explained the principles behind it.

"This is the most exciting spell of them all, Gazzee. It shows your emotional age," he explained. "'Your emotional age is expressed as the chronological age of an ordinary individual who shows the same amount of emotional maturity.'

"Uh oh, those are probably too many big words for you, huh? Do you know what that means? It means if you think like an adult and react to frustration like an adult, the spell will make you LOOK like an adult to everyone else. If you think like an infant and react to frustration like an infant, then you would LOOK like an infant. Hmmm, I don't know what would happen if you think like an adult, teenager or child but you react to frustration like an infant. But that's impossible, so never mind."

Dib resumed reading the book. "'The characteristic way we move changes according to age. Babies... ' that's YOU, Gazzee!" he tickled her belly, " ... are still learning how to move, so they move CLUMSILY! Children...' that's me! '... are learning to move more accurately, and continue to improve until they are teenagers. At this point, rapidly growing arms and legs make them clumsy again.' Uh oh. 'Adults have learned to conserve energy and therefore move as little as possible. Old people move stiffly. It is a large part of our perception of a person's age - '"

Tortured almost beyond endurance from listening to Dib reading to her, Gaz began to scream. Had she been able to speak she would have said something like, "Dib you will shut your mouth right this second or you will wish I was never born!"

Dib paused in his reading when he head Gaz whining. "What's wrong? Oh, I'm sorry!" he said, genuinely contrite. "Here I've just been reading to you, when you wanted me to hold you!"

Gaz froze. She could imagine few things she would welcome less. As she recoiled in disgust, Dib took her in his arms and rocked her. He was holding her too closely for her to kick or punch, but at least she was now close enough to yank his hair. Stiffly and awkwardly, she grasped a handful of his hair, but then she had to figure out how to pull it as savagely as she wanted to.

Before she could do this however, Dib had gently disengaged her hands, chuckling, "That's my hair! Ha - ir! Your own hair will grow soon enough, Gazzee. Then you'll be sitting in front of your mirror for hours, and you'll fuss with it and scream, 'OOH! I have to fix My Hair!!' or whatever girls say when they're doing their hair. When you learn how to talk, will you tell me what they say? Or is that a secret for girls only?"

--

Gaz hoped this was they day she'd finally get some pizza, but for dinner they had roast chicken instead. She was coaxed to swallow spoonful after spoonful of chicken pureed with lima beans and broccoli, which was even worse than chicken alone.

After washing the dishes as Dib dried them, Membrane announced they were going to the park. "My child development colleague tells me it is beneficial for children to see how they fit into the larger community!" he explained.

Still wearing his lab coat, boots, gloves and goggles, the Professor carried Gaz to the car with Dib happily running alongside, and they drove to the biggest park in town. They easily found a free bench under a big tree and sat down to enjoy the shade. "Too much sunshine can be detrimental to the skin, and this is especially true of baby skin!" said the Professor, almost dropping Gaz as he pointed dramatically towards the sun.

Before long, the family found itself surrounded as all the adults close enough to see her made a beeline for Gaz.

"That's my sister! She - " Dib began proudly, but they roughly elbowed him aside for being too old to interest them. He was almost a teenager, and they hated early teenagers so much that they even hated anybody who was soon going to be a teenager. In fact, the only thing they hated anywhere near as much as an early teenager was prejudice.

"Stop whining," somebody snarled at him, even though Dib hadn't even been thinking about complaining about anything.

They all turned their backs on the smiling Dib to chuck the frowning, surly Gaz under the chin. Dib soon realized this was actually a blessing; they were all just talking baby talk anyway. He decided to stay nearby in case he was needed for something, and so he wouldn't be left behind if the Professor decided to get up and leave all of a sudden.

Gaz wasn't doing a single thing but scowling into space while wiggling her fingers, but that was all it took to make these total strangers fall to their knees and deify her. They patted her on the head, plucked at her dress, generally fussed over her and did all the other things Gaz hated, but this time she could do nothing to stop them OR get away. It was her worst nightmare come true.

"She is so cool!"

"She is SO awesome!"

"She... is... the coolest... EVER!"

"She rocks!"

"She rules!"

"She is teh awesomeness!"

"She is the shiznit!" gushed one of the younger adults in the crowd. Even though they had not the first clue what the word meant, even the oldest grandmas nodded in enthusiastic agreement. If it was about baby Gaz and if it meant something good, then it just had to be true.

Gaz struggled but her father wouldn't let go of her; fascinated though he was with the plant growth and insect life in the park, he wasn't about to drop her on the ground. Gaz tried to sneer at the slack-jawed, gawking crowd to "Go away," but when she opened her mouth she spit up her pureed dinner all over herself instead.

When anybody pukes, unless they're babies, it is considered repulsive and disgustingly sickening. When a baby does it, people think it's cute. Gaz's entourage now all fell over themselves as completely as if she had made the most devastating retort ever.

"Aww, she spit up! That's so adorable!"

"You think she couldn't get any more awesome, but then she spits up and she becomes even MORE awesome!"

"Like totally ohmuhgahhhd or something, I just wanna HUG HER! She'd like, totally spit up like alloverme but it'd be like soooooo WORTH IT! ShesaGODDESS!!"

"I love it when she spits up! That's the best thing she does."

"Wanna bet she spits up on _him_ all the time?" someone suggested, jerking his thumb in Dib's general direction.

If they had been indoors when this idea was suggested, the roof would have been blown clear off the building. Immediately they all staggered around weak-kneed and wetting their pants, braying with laughter at the mere thought of it. Quite a few began to choke and had to be patted on the back, and a couple of them laughed so hard they even gave themselves nosebleeds.

Their outburst was loud enough to distract Dib from working out his latest plan to catch Zim. He could see a lot of people laughing... very hard... but he couldn't see a single thing funny. Among the people who were spastic with laughter, he noticed a bloody nose or two. This was what had amused them so much? An injury was all it took to amuse some people, he thought grimly. He offered them his handkerchief, but that send them into even wilder spasms of laughter.

Then he noticed the mess Gaz had made of herself and called his father's attention to it. After looking up from a intriguing patch of _Trifolium repens_, the Professor pulled a lab towel out of his pocket and wiped off as much of the puke as he could before announcing they had better return home to put some clean clothes on Gaz.

Dib kept happily telling Gaz about everything he could see out the car windows. Unable to attack him to get him to shut up, Gaz started to whine a gurgle that meant, "Dib if you do not shut up... " but stopped when she saw Dib reach toward her as if to hug her. Dib resumed looking out the windows and describing everything he saw, which Gaz had decided was preferable to being hugged.

When they were about a quarter of a mile away from home, Dib suddenly saw a bright object falling from the sky.

"DAD!"

Membrane braked so fast he almost went through the windshield. "What is it, son? Did I nearly have an accident?"

"I just saw something fall from the sky! Maybe it was a UFO! It fell right over there!" Dib pointed toward the woods behind their house. "C'mon, let's go see what it is - "

"It was only the reflection of the sun off the windshield of a plane, son," Membrane explained. "There are no UFOs!"

"But if it was flying and we don't know what it is, that's enough to mean it's an unidentified flying object," Dib insisted.

"I do know what it was, and it was a plane. Now let's hear no more about it, son."

No planes were visible in the sky, but Dib didn't bother pointing this out. The Professor's voice had been firm.

--

As it would soon be Gaz's bedtime, Membrane changed her straight into her night clothes. As Dib coaxed Gaz to eat a revolting bowl of pureed oatmeal and asparagus, Membrane suddenly realized something. He would be returning to work the next day, and Dib was going to go to school. "I can't make you stay home and babysit, son; I'm almost certain that would violate some child labor law. Now where am I going to get a babysitter at such short notice?" he mused, as if he had only now thought of it.

He didn't have to ponder long, however. A knock came to the door and Dib ran to answer it.

Standing there was a serious looking young woman. Wearing stripes and combat boots, she looked oddly familiar, like that alien girl Tak who he and Zim had run off the planet a short while back. For a moment Dib frowned slightly, trying to remember, but finally shook his head. Nah, this couldn't be Tak. Tak had been much younger. And shorter. And she had different hair. And she had left the planet. Left it for good...

--

Of course, it was indeed Tak, and the shiny object Dib had seen falling had been her spaceship.

Tak had returned to earth to finally take her revenge on Zim, and she had sworn that this time she would not fail. She would take her revenge as well on Dib and Gaz for running her off... and on Gir too, for being there.

Tak didn't forgive.

She was going to run through them all one by one, and she assigned herself the human Dib and his sister Gaz as a warmup exercise in preparation for the main event over at Zim's base. Her eyes now swept the living room in search of a plausible, friendly-sounding reason for them to allow her into their home, and beyond Dib and his father she noticed Gaz lying helpless on the couch. She concealed an evil grin.

Odd, though, she thought; Gaz had looked a bit different the last time she had seen her. She tried to remember an exceptionally intelligent baby messing up her plans the last time she had been here, but decided it was more likely that Dib had two sisters and she had gotten them confused. No matter. Tak would have her revenge! Revenge was what Tak lived for.

"I just moved in to the neighborhood, and my name iiiis... is Kat which is short for Katrina," she now told Membrane, forcing herself to show her least threatening smile. "I'm looking for a, uh, a baby sitting job for weekdays, or weekends... you know... and I only charge, like, 2.00 a day!"

Membrane replied that was a reasonable enough rate... especially as there was no one else on his doorstep at the moment who was looking for a baby sitting job.

Gaz noticed the gleam in the stranger's eye as Tak turned to leave, and immediately began to scream.

"Our little baby has had a big day!" boomed Membrane. "Time for beddy-bye!'

Gaz still wasn't used to going to bed when the sky was still light, and she lay awake for hours wondering what horrors the next day would bring.

--

_(A/N) "And now we've got a butterfly in here. Does the whole world know we've got a window open?"_

_"The insect world sure seems to know." _

_"Do you know what kind of butterfly this one is?"_

_"It's a painted fritillary swallowtail."_

_"Show off!"_

_"Well, you asked."_

_"I didn't think you were going to know!" _

_"Well, I did know, and now you know too." _


	4. Monday

Monday

"... and the baby formula is in the cupboard, and the phone number of the lab is next to the phone, " said Membrane, scooping up his papers while Dib fastened his back pack and waved goodbye to Gaz.

The door closed, Membrane and Dib headed off to their respective destinations, and Gaz was now left at Tak's mercy.

Tak lost no time getting started on the privilege of all babysitters, raiding the fridge. She gorged on cookies, candy, ice cream and cake, savoring them right in Gaz's face.

Gaz kept screaming in frustration, even more from not being able to do anything than from her concern over the food.

"Say cookie," coaxed Tak, holding the last cookie just out of Gaz's reach.

"'oo...'ee..." said Gaz.

"I'm not saying, 'Oo ee,' you stupid cretinous moronic little dimwit. Cookie! Cookie! COOKIE!!"

Gaz tried as hard as she could, but the closest she could come was, "'OO... KEEE!"

"Close, but not close enough!" Tak smirked, biting into the cookie herself.

Gaz screamed with outrage, which made Tak laugh still more.

When lunch time came, Tak dropped in front of her charge a bowl of lukewarm, soggy pablum that looked as if she had already eaten it and it had disagreed with her. Gaz's skin crawled as Tak forced spoonful after spoonful into her mouth. The pureed homemade baby food had been almost delicious compared to this.

After lunch Tak plunked the baby bottle down in front of her and leaned back to

enjoy a soda herself.

"Want a taste?" Tak suddenly offered Gaz the bottle with some pop still in the bottom of it. "It won't rot your teeth, because you don't have any!" Gaz figured out how to reach for the bottle, but Tak yanked it away just as Gaz did so. She offered it again, and yanked it away just in time. As Gaz shook all over and screamed with frustration, Tak just laughed and drank the rest of it.

--

After lunch, Tak turned on the TV and settled back on the couch to watch it. After flipping all through the channels to find a show she wanted to watch, she chose a program about the psychology of serial killers. She wanted to pick up some ideas for her own revenge spree.

If the topic had been the biographies of serial killers, and if the program had offered lots of real life police photographs, Gaz might have been interested, but she became very bored almost immediately. The idiot on the television was... TALKING! What he was saying wasn't as stupid as what Dib usually talked about, but it was stupid enough. She began to demand to watch the zombie movie channel instead, which came out sounding like she was fussing.

Tak turned the TV up louder; not even Dib ever dared to do that! Gaz fussed more, and Tak turned the TV up louder. Now the volume was too loud for Gaz. She tried to cover her ears, but her arms soon got tired. Bored AND uncomfortable, Gaz fussed even louder, but now Tak couldn't hear her over the television.

Finally, something DID get Tak's attention.

"Phew, something stinks"! Tak looked around, wrinkling her nose. She looked down at Gaz and grimaced still more. "Oh. It's you!"

Tak removed Gaz's diaper. Scowling with disgust, she lifted Gaz's legs and pulled the full diaper clear, before dropping Gaz's butt on the floor.

"See this?" Tak held the bloated, reeking diaper directly above Gaz's face.

All Gaz could do was stare, and desperately hope Tak would not drop it, accidentally or otherwise.

"Poo - py! Poopy pants... bad! Go poopy... in pot... ty! Potty... good!"

"No fuckin' shit, bitch!" Gaz would have given anything to be able to roll clear and snarl that, but all that came out was, "Blaaaughaah!"

Tak set the diaper aside, carried Gaz to the bathroom and strapped Gaz into the new baby toilet seat. She had left the bathroom door swinging wide open, which irritated Gaz to no end. Even though the two males who also lived there weren't home at the moment, it still made her uneasy.

"Go potty," Tak ordered Gaz, pointing a finger in her face. "Go potty... for Tak!"

Gaz's hair curled at the overbearing, forceful tone of Tak's voice and she tried her best not to comply. Still, an hour later, or perhaps two, the splash came, most likely out of sheer boredom. Tak patted Gaz's head, singing, "Gooo-oood ba-by!" Then she gave her a reward... a lollipop!

A reward? For using the toilet? When she had had no other choice? This was the most humiliating thing Gaz could imagine. So far...

--

The previous evening, Dib had run out right after Gaz had been put to bed and searched the woods for the fallen object. He hadn't found anything out of the ordinary, but he was no less confident that something had most definitely fallen from the sky. Now Dib hoped his father would come home early and relieve him of his child care duties; he wanted to go out and resume his search.

The first thing Dib did when he returned home after school now was to ask Tak how Gaz's day had gone.

Tak pretended to think. "Well, she didn't eat anything that wasn't good for her. I made sure of that."

"Thanks, Kat! Babies sure love to put everything into their mouths, don't they?"

After showing Kat to the door, Dib came over to Gaz lying on the couch in her booster seat. She didn't look too happy, but didn't babies usually look like that?

This had been another hot day. Dib now went to the fridge, opened a soda, and began to drink it. As all Gaz's screams and kicks had been of no avail today, she didn't think making a fuss would help her now, so she just sadly stared at him drinking it.

Dib soon began to feel self-conscious drinking pop right in front of someone who was watching him drink it, so he took one of Gaz's baby bottles and poured a little of his drink into it. It wasn't like she needed to chew this, and after all, what could it hurt?

As soon as Dib brought the bottle close enough, Gaz began gulping the soda so quickly that she got the hiccups.

"Got the hiccups, Gazzee?" Dib said, taking the bottle away and smiling. "They're hiccups! Hic - ups!"

Gaz frowned. He had given them to her deliberately... hadn't he? She would doom him... as soon as she figured out how. Instead she just hiccuped again.

Dib reached to pick her up, and for a moment Gaz froze. However, he didn't rock her this time, but simply rubbed her back as if burping her. She hiccuped once or twice more, and when she seemed to have stopped, he placed her back in the booster.

When Membrane soon came home, they fed Gaz a blend of peanut butter, wheat germ, mashed bananas, and cod liver oil and put her to bed.

Dib ran out to search the woods once more, but when he came home without finding anything, he decided that the shiny thing, whatever it was, must have actually fallen much farther away than where it had seemed to fall.

_(A/N) "Where's the first aid kit?" _

_"Why, what's wrong?"_

_"I just need... something in it, that's all." _

_"We're getting every sort of insect EXCEPT the ones we want to get."_

_"Yeah, I know! Ants, butterflies, bees... at this rate, we won't have any honey left for the flies!" _

_"A bee stung you?"_

_"I didn't say that."_

_"You didn't have to! A bee stung you! Ha ha ha... !" _


	5. Tuesday

Tuesday

The second day, as soon as the Professor and Dib were out of sight, Tak stepped up the pressure. Now she would take Gaz out in public.

"I've got to get out of this house," said Tak, more to herself than to Gaz. "I'll go insane with nobody but a baby for company. 'Blah glah glah, blah glah glaaaah!'"

At first Gaz was delighted at the prospect of Tak leaving for the day and leaving her in peace, but her hopes were soon dashed. Tak tied on her head the biggest and frilliest pale pink baby bonnet that she had been able to find, stuck Gaz unceremoniously under one arm and off they went.

The first thing Tak did was stop off at a second hand store and buy the ugliest, moldiest old stroller she could find. It was sprinkled all over with huge, gaudy As, Bs, and Cs, and mentally deficient looking teddy bears. It made Gaz want to puke and she was certain that Tak had chosen this particular one out of sheer malice. However, she could do nothing to stop Tak from buying it, placing her in it, and wheeling her down the street in it.

Gaz usually cared not a whit for what anyone except herself thought about anything; other people weren't worth it, she thought. She now just lay in that repulsive stroller able to do no more than thrash her arms and legs until she was exhausted.

Tak wheeled the stroller to Bloaty's Pizza Hog, folded up and set it inside the door, and took Gaz to a table. When a pimply young waiter made it to her table, she ordered pizza. "Large. With everything on it. Double."

Sitting in her favorite restaurant, breathing in the smell of her favorite food, and surrounded by people all happily chomping away at their pizzas almost drove Gaz insane with longing. When the pizza finally arrived, Gaz reached out to try to make sure she got a slice. However, Tak moved the pizza out of her reach, and from the baby bag took out a bottle of store bought baby food... strained prunes.

Gaz clamped her mouth tightly shut with rage, but Tak got around that easily enough. She merely pinched Gaz's nose shut until she had to open her mouth... Gaz's favorite method of waking up Dib.

Gaz could only watch helplessly as Tak gluttonously relished the pizza, but worse was to come; Tak didn't even want all of the pizza! Before Gaz's horrified eyes, Tak left nearly half the pizza on the table when she got up to pay and... leave!

Gaz screamed, a long shriek of delirious, deranged agony.

"Awwww," cooed the kind-hearted cashier. "Wassa babby boo booooo?"

Gaz screamed louder. She didn't need this!

Someone put something into Tak's hand. Tak looked at it and said to Gaz, "Let's find somewhere to eat this."

Tak pushed the stroller to the park, which on a weekday afternoon was nearly deserted. She didn't take long to find a bench and sat down. Tak then opened the ice cream she had been given at the restaurant, detached the plastic spoon, gave Gaz a bottle... and ate the ice cream herself!

--

This time when he came home after school, Dib found Gaz too worn out to cry or scream or even fuss any more; she just lay there, miserable and fed up with life. Somehow, Dib could tell she had had a very bad day.

He scooped her up from the couch, carried her into the kitchen and set her in the highchair. "Dad told me on the hoverscreen that he'll be coming home late tonight, so I get to feed you all by myself! Isn't that great? But you know something? I don't think you like baby food. I know I sure wouldn't like it! Tell you what," Dib said, lowering his voice and glancing around as if his father was actually home, "I'm going to order another pizza, and I'll puree some of it for you." He leaned closer. "But don't tell Dad, okay? This'll be our secret, a secret just between you and me!"

While waiting for the pizza, Dib set the table, talking to Gaz the whole time. He told her about his day, about how mean Ms. Bitters was, and about the really stupid thing Zim did at lunchime. Gaz decided she could stand this. At least he wasn't talking to her the way her babysitter had, and she was soon going to get some PIZZA!

Between bites, Dib fed Gaz spoonfuls of pureed pizza. He started by saying, "Here comes the flying saucer," but stopped doing this as soon as he realized that Gaz was only too willing to eat.

Never before, not even to Gaz, had any pizza ever tasted so good.

Gaz was still hungry after finishing the little bowl of pureed pizza, but instead of screaming and kicking with a red face and banging her fists, or scowling, she now merely looked straight at Dib as if trusting him to know she wanted more.

"What's that? You want some more? Well, pizza isn't exactly a balanced diet, and I've got a good idea what Dad would say to this, but... oh heck! He won't be home until late! Pizza for dinner just this once won't hurt!" With a wink at Gaz, Dib dropped a second slice of pizza into the blender.

Gaz was forced to admit to herself that there was a huge difference, an enormous difference, between the way Kat took care of her and the way Dib was taking care of her.

Much to Dib's amazement, Gaz ended up eating half the pizza. "Wow, were you EVER hungry!" Dib marveled, wiping the tray even though Gaz had seen to it that not a drop had been spilled.

Dib flattened the pizza box and put it on top of the rest of the cardboard; then he filled the sink to wash his glass and Gaz's bottle, then cleaned out the blender. This sure beat washing two entire place settings AND the blender!

Dib continued talking away to Gaz, and Gaz now found him somewhat less of a torture to listen to. Some of the things he said even made sense to her, almost.

"I used to have these awful dreams where you were older and you'd be really mean to me over tiny little things, but you wouldn't do that, would you, Gaz? You're my sister!"

Before doing his homework, Dib bathed Gaz, put her to bed, and sang a lullaby to her, changing words like "on the tree top" to "look at the stars" and "the cradle will rock" to "You'll fly around Mars."

This time, Gaz didn't complain.

She was already asleep.

_(A/N) "Do we have any flies now?"_

_"I still don't see any. But I did see a spider."_

_"You did? Where did you see it?"_

_"It's building a web right over one of the tables."_

_"Which table?"_

_"The table with the honey!"_

_"Looks like the spider believes the saying." _

_"But WE haven't caught any flies yet, and now we're going to have competition from that spider."_

_"I thought this was going to be simple, but everything's been going wrong." _

_"It's not like this never happens. Remember the time we wanted to jump that RC car over a ramp, and instead you - "_

_"No. No, I don't remember anything at all about that." _

_" - drove it through the - "_

_"Let's NOT remember that time."_

_"You should; you were there! In fact, you drove it right through the - "_

_"TIME to take another reading! Let's go!" _


	6. Wednesday

Wednesday

The next day, Tak dressed Gaz up in the fussiest, frilliest, daintiest and most disgusting outfit she could find, placed a sheet over that repulsive stroller before putting Gaz in it, and wheeled her through the tiny neighborhood park. It consisted of a few scraggly trees and a muddy duckpond. The only other people there, besides retired old seniors, were teenagers like herself babysitting whiny, discontented babies.

Tak pushed the stroller closer to some other people and their squalling, whiny, snotty-nosed brats as if to tell Gaz that she was one of the latter. Gaz was so embarrassed she started to cry. Then Tak pretended to be concerned about her being hungry, and fed her... with a bottle... with everybody else LOOKING at her!

At least things couldn't get any worse, Gaz thought, but that was before Tak took her to the baby photographer's studio a few blocks past the park.

Gaz endured the usual "Watch the birdie!" singsong crap, but then it got even worse. When the photographer suggested the costume room, Gaz saw Tak's eyes light up as evilly as they had lit up on Sunday.

Little Bo Peep, Little Miss Muffet, Little Red Riding Hood... on Gaz went costume after humiliating costume, accompanied by equally humiliating props. That singsong voice rubbed into Gaz's face the hopelessly outdated belief that girls are all "sugar and spice and everything nice," but she couldn't say anything that they could understand. She kept threatening them, but that didn't work any more!

"Smile, dearie, smile honey buns, sweet cheeks... "

The last thing Gaz felt like doing was smiling, but this torture would not stop until she did.

Finally Gaz reached for a word she had never deigned to use before. "PLEASE!" she screamed.

"'EEE-EEZ!"

"Yes, that's right, Dearie! 'Cheese!'" simpered the photographer, snapping the shutter. Gaz was mortified beyond what she had ever imagined doing to anyone. She would have to kill everyone who ever saw those photos... as soon as she could figure out how.

--

Finally, at long last, Tak took Gaz out of the photography studio, and to Gaz's amazement, they headed to MacMeaty's. It wasn't pizza, but Gaz knew they had several different sorts of food. Maybe finally she would get some actual FOOD for the first time in five days.

Instead, Tak placed Gaz in the ball room, with the babies. Gaz was revolted. Much as she had hated being fussed over like a china doll at the photography studio, she soon found herself wishing she was back. Every single ball was sticky with puke, drool, snot, and she didn't dare to guess what else. The babies around her were all crying, so she began screaming, "LET ME OUT OF HERE OR I WILL MAKE YOU WISH YOU HAD RABID WEASELS... " etc.

However, in this setting she soon realized she was just adding to the wails and whines of the babies in the ball room... and she was one of them.

"I DON'T BELONG HERE! LET ME OUT!" With the reality of the situation rubbed in her face in this way, Gaz now lost all restraint and howled uncontrollably anyway.

Tak laughed at her through the glass, and Gaz cried harder.

--

Today Membrane came home at the usual time, so Dib didn't dare slip pureed pizza to her. The pureed cauliflower and sweetbreads tasted even worse after the pizza to which she had been treated the day before; in fact they tasted so bad she couldn't stop drooling to get the taste out of her mouth.

THIS was the worst day of Gaz's life, and by the way things were going, the next day could easily be even worse again. She didn't even scream over anything that evening. She was too sad and too tired to do that.

When Dib asked her to tell him what was wrong, she wouldn't even look at him. Alarmed, Dib now went upstairs to get his old toy space ships out of the closet. He hadn't played with them for a while and they looked small and silly to him now, but he had something different in mind. He took Gaz out of the playpen and settled her on the couch in the booster seat.

He now began putting on a hand puppet show for Gaz using the old toy space ships. "This one is the evil invader from the planet Irk," he said, holding up a battered black spaceship that was bigger than all the others, "and THIS," he held up his favorite, a sky blue one, "is the noble defender of the earth! Let's say the coffee table is the earth and that lamp is the sun; I'll go turn it on now... "

Keeping one eye on Gaz's reactions, Dib acted out a little skit he made up as he went along. He did a mocking imitation of Zim's voice as he brought the black spaceship to the coffee table. "I am going to DESTROY this PITIFUL little planet for my TALLEST, and we're going to make all the PITIFUL inhabitants into SLAVES! CHEAP SLAVES! BARGAIN BASEMENT SLAVES! I AM ZIM, etcetera!" He went back to his usual voice when he lifted up his favorite spaceship and began hitting the black one with it. "Oh no you don't, evil space monster! Not while I'M around!"

So far, the puppet show didn't seem to be amusing Gaz very much, so Dib now acted out a space chase. He ran around the room holding up the spaceships so that the blue one seemed to be chasing the black one. "Help, save ZIM!' Aaa... " Dib had slipped on a stray baby toy, lost his balance and fallen down on the carpet.

Thinking Dib had hurt himself, Gaz laughed and clapped.

"You liked that part, huh?" Dib jumped up, smiling. He acted out that part of the story over and over, making it a little different and more elaborate each time. Whenever he fell down, Gaz laughed and clapped, clapped and laughed. Dib stopped the show only when Membrane placed Gaz in the playpen and cautioned, "Careful son, you don't want to wind her up too much before bedtime. And turn off that lamp; it isn't dark out yet!"

Gaz frowned. That had been fun. Why did her father tell Dib to stop?

"I want you to help me with something, son."

"What is it, Dad?"

"It is time for Gaz to get something," Membrane declared. "It is something very

important that families do about this time."

"I know! Family portrait!" says Dib. "No? First haircut? First bus ride? First trip to the zoo? Enroll her in an enriched nursery skool? Is it soon going to be her birthday? What?"

"Get her inoculated for all the usual communicable childhood diseases!" announced Membrane. "FIND!" He stabbed the air with a forefinger, "her birth certificate! The clinic REQUIRES it!"

"I can't play any more right now, Gazzee. Sorry. I'll be back as soon as I can. Here, YOU make up a story to tell me when I get back!" After putting his toy spaceships in the playpen next to Gaz, Dib turned to follow his father.

After quite a bit of searching, Dib finally found Gaz's birth certificate, in the experimental records in his father's lab. Checking the date, he frowned for a moment, and then his mouth fell open. One didn't have to be a paranormal researcher to know that something very weird was going on.

Dib slowly turned around. "Dad," he said slowly, "it says here, she's... she's nine."

Membrane looked up from looking through a pile of scientific papers. "Nine? Nine what, son? Weeks? Months? That makes a huge difference in physical, mental, and emotional development!"

"Nine _years._ Gaz is nine years old, Dad!"

"Nine YEARS? That can't be her birth certificate then. I don't need multiple Ph.Ds to know she's not nine years old! Keep looking son!" Membrane, reminded of what he was looking for, now turned back to the computer, to sort through folders of family photos on DVD. He liked the old fashioned touch for sentimental items.

Still staring at the birth certificate, Dib sat down and shook his head. No, this wasn't possible. His father could invent anything, could fix anything, so how was Gaz still acting exactly like a baby, at nine years old? This was not normal, even for this family it wasn't normal. This was more like magic, a hex or a...

Suddenly Dib's eyes flew open wide. The spellbook! With all the extra work he'd been doing lately, he hadn't had time to open the spellbook for a while now. He'd last read from it TO Gaz, in fact.

He ran for it now and hastily opened it. Spells for age were at the front of the book, under the letter A. "Why rob the cradle? Make yourself the same age as someone else... ' no... 'Anti-aging, get no older... ' no... 'REVERSE AGING'! No, this one only works on people over 30... 'Age wine,' no... the only one it could be is... 'Act the emotional age you really are, and have people treat you accordingly.'"

Dib frowned. He certainly hadn't cast this spell on Gaz! Never in his wildest dreams would he ever cast a spell on Gaz, and anyone who claimed he would certainly didn't know him very well. Only someone who had never met her would even consider such a thing. Then he frowned. What if she had accidentally cast it on herself? Was it possible? Yes, it was; he _had_ found the book next to her that day...

Dib skimmed the section for this spell until he came to the heading "Reversal." "'To reverse the spell, say the subject's real age three times.'" Carefully, Dib thought over the conversation he had had with his father. "I've said it twice already, and so has Dad. But he doesn't believe in this stuff, so he won't even try to help. That leaves it all up to me."

Dib considered this. Should he? This meant his vague recollections of abuse and insults, beatings and threats, hadn't been dreams at all, but only too real.

It was a lot more in his interest to leave things as they were, in the short term at least. But then he remembered that he had never encountered a spell without an accompanying warning: if you set magic free in the world without controlling it, you inevitably had to deal with long-ranging effects no one could have ever imagined.

Dib had no way of telling what long term effects this spell would produce, and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

Had Gaz still been thinking like her nine year old self these past five days? Dib had no way of knowing that. He fervently hoped she also thought like a baby and wouldn't remember all the horrible-tasting baby food he had fed her, all the times he'd given her a bottle of milk and drank pop right in front of her... he shuddered, not daring to recall any more.

If he didn't reverse the spell, he would get to see first step, first word, first day of skool. He realized he would also have to relive the first time she beat him up and that decided him. If he removed the spell, at least he wouldn't have to endure all those beatings a second time. If he left her as she was, he would.

Assuming the worst, that if she had had a nine year old mind the whole time, she would certainly be angry; he didn't dare to imagine how angry. Dib took a deep breath and decided he might as well get it over with before she got any angrier.

He walked up to the playpen and lifted Gaz out of it. If she was in that contraption when she came back to herself she would undoubtedly be furious, which was something he did not need. He placed her carefully on the couch, facing away from him. Carefully he positioned her GameSlave right in front of her, well within her reach; surely after five days without it, her accumulated need to play it would outweigh any impulse to attack him, and after she had caught up with her game playing, maybe she wouldn't be as mad any more.

He walked to the doorway and crouched to make a run for it. He took a deep breath, gulped, "N - nine... years," and fled.

When he cautiously peeked back in the living room fifteen minutes later, Gaz was no longer there. Neither was her GameSlave. Dib sighed with relief. She hadn't thanked him, but neither had she flown into him with fists and feet swinging. For Gaz, that was very very good indeed.

--

Gaz was going after Tak first, but it was no use; Tak was on her way back to Irk! She had left a few moments ago in her space ship which she had carefully hidden in a tree's branches, and now shes looked back just long enough to make a rude gesture at Gaz.

Tak couldn't remember when she had laughed this much. If she had spent the past three days setting fires and disemboweling, flaying and killing things, she would now be more angry, not less. She had had so much fun these past three days that all her remaining thoughts of revenge had dissolved completely; it is very difficult to remain angry when you are laughing.

Gaz stormed impotently on the ground for some minutes, then vowed that she would doom Dib twice, once for Tak and once for himself, for bringing that accursed book home. Now she turned on her heel and began to slowly and threateningly stomp straight back to the house.

Suddenly she began to walk more slowly; she had remembered that it was because of Dib that she was now able to walk and talk and do things once again. Next, she remembered all the things he had done while she was under the spell. He had fed her pizza... against their father's orders... he had cheered her up after the worst day of her life by deliberately falling down over and over... he had given her pop and gotten rid of her hiccups and...

As she remembered more and more, Gaz finally stopped walking altogether. She lowered herself to sit on the ground, then leaned over and covered her eyes with shaking hands, overwhelmed by a jumble of feelings that were so new, so utterly unfamiliar, that she had no names for any of them.

_"Look! Look what's out there - Shhh!"_

_"A raccoon!" Isn't that the darnedest thing!"_

_"Yeah I know! They usually don't let you see them, certainly not in the day!" _

_"I wonder what it's doing here now?" _

_"It seems to be looking for something." _

_"I didn't bring any food, did you?"_

_"No, I thought we'd be finished by now." _

_"A raccoon. Well I'll be." _


	7. Thursday

Thursday

Dib was watching "Mysterious Mysteries" and Gaz was seated next to him playing her game. Dib was indignantly arguing with the guest, a slightly more sensible guest than they usually had, Gaz thought; this one was claiming the Loch Ness Monster was merely an oversized piece of driftwood.

The show wasn't as bad as Gaz remembered it used to be, but did Dib have to be so loud? It wasn't like anybody on the television could hear him.

Finally Gaz said firmly, "Dib, I'm trying to play my game. Will you please be a little more QUIET!"

Dib whipped his head around to stare at her in astonishment, but Gaz was once again immersed in her artificial world. Had she just said, "Please?" Asking her to repeat herself had never been a good idea, and now he wondered if asking her to do so would bring back the old, bad-tempered, violently brutal Gaz. He decided not to risk it. Things were better now anyway.

He was certain it had sounded more like a request than her usual highhanded order, and she had even left out her usual threat of bodily harm. That made it the same as a big smile, a "Pretty please?" and a bribe from anybody else.

Dib settled back against the couch to watch the rest of his show, more quietly now. Something had changed in the previous week. It was something very strange, but it was something he was sure he could get used to.

Gaz was surprised too. That had actually worked? Saying "please" was definitely a lot less work than threatening him or beating him up. She didn't even have to stop playing her game.

Membrane now came home, early this time. Halfway through the living room he paused, as if he had suddenly noticed something. He looked at Gaz and shook his head wistfully. "They grow up SO fast!"

The End...

_"Hmm, it's been... long enough."_

_"The room is actually... uh, not available right now, but we do finally have some results. Adam?"_

_"Table Two, no flies on the dish, no flies on the flypaper, and no flies in the vinegar." _

_"Table One has no flies on the dish, no flies on the flypaper, and no flies in the honey. In fact, there IS no honey; the bear licked it all up!"_

_"You should have seen the look on your face when that bear came in through the door!' _

_"I didn't have to; I saw the look on yours!" _

_"How'd you remember to grab the automatic door slammer on the way out?"_

_"Danger IS my middle name." _

_"And then I called the Wildlife Service, to come and collect their, their bear."_

_"Okay, time to wrap up this myth. Did we at any point see any flies near the vinegar?"_

_"I was watching the vinegar the whole time... until the bear came in of course... and at no time did I ever see any flies anywhere near the vinegar. Oh, and no bears either." _

_"Did the bear drink any vinegar?"_

_"I watched the CCTV tapes while you were waiting for the Wildlife Service... fast-forwarding through all the boring parts where the bear was nowhere near the vinegar, and no, the bear did not drink any vinegar."_

_"You're sure?"_

_"Yes, I'm sure. No vinegar." _

_"And were there ever any flies on Buster?"_

_"No."_

_"Did we see any flies at all?"_

_"Not a one. We saw ants, butterflies, bees, and a - " _

_"That's not what this myth is about. Did we see any flies on either of the two pieces of flypaper?"_

_"No, we did not. So are we going to call this one Busted?"_

_"I wouldn't exactly call it busted; we still don't know whether you can catch more flies with honey than you can catch with vinegar." _

_"But we did find out something else... you CAN catch more BEARS with honey than you can catch with vinegar!" _

_"Now that IS true." _

_"So we're done. Er, you did say it was B-E-E-R we had for them?"_

_"Yes, I figured they'd get here faster if they thought that." _

_"Looks like they figured it out." _

_"And they're mad at us." _

_"So they're taking their time." _

_"And I'm getting hungry. Is there any honey left?"_

_"No. The bear found the rest and ate it all, every bit of it." _

_"I wish they'd hurry up and get here so we could go grab a bite to eat." _

_"Yeah, babysitting a BEAR is just plain weird!"_


End file.
